Has Tesla really killed of the myth of rubbish electric cars as Simon says? And are we just trying to make another Tesla as Peter says?

Tesla’s big success has been to convince so many people that they’ve actually done it. That their car is on the road and does what they say it would. I think they’ve created a new myth (for the few), that the Tesla works. It’s a great piece of PR. Hasn’t killed the old myth though (for the many).

Behind the PR – $150 Million spent so far, running 2 years late, only one car just delivered to the CEO – and this with the ‘gearbox problem’. New plan is to fix this later. Performance will drop. But we knew that, because the numbers don’t add up anyway.

Do we want to make another Tesla, no we don’t. But we share similar goals.

The current myth of electric cars lives on and it will be years before Tesla, or anyone else, gets it together in the UK (if they ever do). So we’re stepping up. It needs doing because it has not been done yet and we don’t actually have any time to lose.

If all cars in the UK were electric (and wind powered) we’d cut CO2 emissions by 12.5%

23 responses to “Another Tesla? – preferably not.”

Chris

May 16, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Of course the other unique part of this operation is that Ecotricity is a green energy provider. There are a number of green ‘packages’ or promotions that could be offered with the car. Tesla, Lightning or Aptera etc. are not yet in this position.

If Ecotricity could combine such packages with an electric car which is made from recycled materials and which is largely recyclable at the end of it’s life… then you would have one of the greenest driving experiences on earth!

The Tesla is derived from Lotus engineering in Norfolk, which is also where Ecotricity are putting in a turbine to supply the company’s energy needs.

The great shame with Tesla is that the price / performance is still outstripped by the relative high cost here (and the fact that they are not planning to provide service centers in the UK, makes the ownership proposition a tricky one).

If you can work with the Norfolk company on something like the Tesla, but that can fit into an existing dealership network, you’ll be onto a winner.
Add to that an 80% charge capacity in 4-5 mins and a 200 mile range – I’d have one tomorrow.

Pulease, what’s the point of another sportscar? Invent an electric family saloon or MPV, or an engine that can retro-fit into a petrol car – then I’d be impressed.

Mark Young

May 19, 2008 at 3:38 pm

It’s great to see all this interest again in electric cars, even after a 100 year gap since the idea was first mooted! But despite all the hype and greenwash, the only electric vehicle I’ve ever seen here in Cheltenham…..is a milk float!

Wind powered vehicles seem one of the few truly sustainable mobility options, that we could still be doing in 1000 years time. The trouble with cars is the sheer mass compared to the passenger. If I ride my bike, thats around 15kg. If I rented a car, that’ll be around 1500kg. So the car weighs 100 times as much! Yet car designers do all they can to hide this. They try to disguise the bulk by clever styling, make the steering light and effortless, and give us quiet diesels that allow a 2.5 ton 4×4 to feel like a much smaller car.

I think what I’m getting at is the kWh needed to make a car “accelerate faster than a Ferrari” – it must be a lot! OK, if we are at stage where we have excess renewable energy, then great. But we’re nowhere near that are we?

drivin98

May 19, 2008 at 5:59 pm

I thought you were just doing a one-off. Do you have plans to produce a bunch of these or something?

I think you need to pay a visit to the Tesla facility in Hethel to see for yourself that Tesla is not merely a PR engine. We are well past the first car (working on the 7th right now and will be speeding up production over the summer to fill the hundreds of orders that have been placed). We are also planning a service location near London and starting to deliver cars in the UK (albeit LHD) and rest of the EU starting next Spring.

As for the numbers, all but the first couple of dozen production cars will meet the original spec of 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds. The interim box will be swapped out for the first cars for free. The range is 220 miles per charge. The numbers not only add up, they have all been demonstrated.

So I applaud what you are setting out to do, but I think it would just be easier for you to buy a Tesla.

After reading your about me, seeing what you have done! You have the attitude and resources to make this happen! I am following with keen interest!
=-)

Chris

May 20, 2008 at 10:41 am

Darryl – Congrats on your achievements. I’m very impressed with the Tesla. However, buying a Tesla is not as easy as it sounds for many of us!! Any plans to offer something a little more affordable?

Darryl

May 21, 2008 at 3:00 am

chris – yes, the end goal is to offer a variety of vehicles at various price points. The next one planned is a sports sedan and we are shooting for about $70,000 in the US. That is scheduled for the end of 2010. One step at a time.

@Chris – Thanks Chris, we’re certainly going to try to bring something new to this party.

@Alex – There is a link there. We first approached Lotus to build an electric car for us over two years ago now, at the time, though we didn’t know it, they were deep in negotiations with Tesla. We were working up the wind farm plan with them (three turbines by the way) and had the idea. The Lotus is an ideal platform for an electric car, small, light, basic – and potentially fun. Time passed by and we were unable to resolve certain aspects of the commercials with Lotus. We’re pursuing a non factory route now.

I agree with you though, if we could make a car with Lotus that would be a big advantage, there’s still that possibility if we come up with something suitable – they’re good guys and we have a lot of time for them.
I’d also have one tomorrow if you could charge it in 5 minutes and do 200 miles – but from what I know, that’s PR pie in the sky – stuff they use to keep us all excited, and not possible, not today anyway. Cheers.

@Mike Butcher – I hear you Mike. If there was even one electric sportscar on the road right now I’d agree with you more. But I do understand your point. Thing is this stuff has to start somewhere and as the technology is expensive, high performance cars are the place it can best be made to work. The move to more everyday cars will surely follow. It has to start somewhere though.

Don’t know if this is what you have in mind when you say ‘retrofit’ – but something I’ve not explained yet is that our project is about taking a car off the road, stripping out its petrol engine and associated gubbins, electrifying it, and returning it to the road. If we produce more it would be on the same lines, not new cars – but one for one swaps. Transforming existing cars. There’s some real merit in re using stuff that’s already been built, one of the three R’s after all. Cheers.

Darryl – Mate if you can retrofit an Electric engine powered by wind in my Renault Scenic which my wife and I only use for the odd local trip and the odd long trip to parents (with two young kids) then bring it on. I will be your ad campaign spokesperson. Contact me via my blog.

But sports cars don’t impress me. Cars are just utilities which have been “fetishized”. We need real electric cars for real people and real families.

Dale, very interested in your electric car concept – we too are into high performance vehicles, we design high performance cars, mostly for racing… motorsport is rapidly becoming aware of the environment.

We have raced electric hybirds and bio-ethanol powered cars at Le Mans 24hrs as technology demonstrators… we’d like to talk about how we could help with your project, like your project race cars are all about efficiency.

One of the first of the new generation of electric cars is the Mitsubishi iMiEV which is highway speed capable and has range of about 100 miles. It should be coming to England next year but in very limited numbers. If you’re seriously interested you should register that interest with Mitsubishi at this webpage, http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/i-ev/register.asp
(I think the price will be about 15,000 (BP).)

I hope that the Tesla indeed does or will do 220 miles on a tank, the 0 to 60 is less important, but if you say it, you should deliver it. My concern is that exaggerated claims will damage the credibility of electric cars, and I feel your claims may be hard to deliver – and I think your experience to date backs that up. I hope you do it though. Truly I do.

But should I really just buy a Tesla? – I’ve a better idea for you – I live close enough to Lotus’s factory, how about letting me take one round the test track there for an hour or two – see how far it really goes? And if you’re right – I will buy one, assuming of course the waiting list isn’t years… and that I can live with LHD…

How about it, talk is easy, you up for proving it? – I’m willing to eat my words.

@drivin98 – It’s both really. The first one is a one off, but we have it in mind that if it does what we think it will, there could be interest from other people – in which case we’d want to go into limited production. And if it still was in demand after that, bigger scale production. But a one off first. If that makes sense.

@markjyoung – I hear what you say, The focus on Ferrari type performance looks wrong, it’s designed for a diff audience. The problem isn’t caused by people that use bikes instead of cars – people like you, it’s caused by the most of us that are hooked on the stuff (for diff reasons) right now. To have a hope of making a significant change we need to offer clean cars (not bicycles), something the mass of people will take as a serious option for them now. It’s a step and a big one if we can run cars on wind energy.

PS – the UK has enough wind energy blowing past us everyday – to power the whole country 3 to 4 times over, so yes in theory we do have an abundance of renewable energy. OK we have to harvest it yet…

@James – cheers for the support.

Tony Smith

May 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Converting existing cars to electric is not a new idea. I remember reading about a DIY Range-Rover conversion in the 1980s (They used RR because it was able to carry the half ton of lead acid batteries!). As I remember it only did 40mph but was fine for the local trips expected of it. Do a bit of googling and you’ll find all sorts of interesting conversions, although nothing on a commercial scale.
I’m prone to a bit of spanner bending myself so would feel confident in my ability to install a properly developed kit….perhaps retrofit conversions could be a good market for a few years until purpose built cars become affordable? Ok, so converting a heavy old car geared for an IC engine isn’t ideal but it may be a way to speed the transition and also avoid the environmental cost of scrapping millions of perfectly good cars just to replace with brand new “green” ones.

Grumpy-b

May 23, 2008 at 3:40 pm

The idea of owing an EV has appealed for some time, but most are such poor excuses for transport and bluntly something I would not want to be inside when an accident happens.
However Citroen/ Peugeot from about 96 to 04 built vehicles like the SAXO Peueot 106, Partner and Berlingo Electriques. I now own a working Berlingo and a few more for spares. Its truely brilliant. In the last month of driving I have clocked up over 800miles. Charging over night this costs me approximately 2p per mile as against about 11p per mile for my diesel vehicle.
So whats the problems, well PSA (Citroen peugeot) have little support for the vehicles, and in the UK have delibertely kept the replacement battery cost high and virtually unavailable from the actual manufacturers owing to a restrictive contract. I can do just over 40 miles with a good reserve, travelling at about 45mph with quite a bit of hills. A good result. A number of local authorities have supported my requests for charging locations on an ad hoc basis and are now considering more permanent facilities.
We need good accessible charging points, and the current standard is based upon the humble 13amp plug. This is woefully inadequate and were never designed for heavy current draw for some hours. The UK desperately needs to get some standards set for good workable charging points. This isnt happening, and no Government assistance is taking place. I guess they dont want to lose the massive cash they are making on fossil fuels.
Long live the electric vehicle, and may the use and facilities expand.

Scott

May 24, 2008 at 9:36 am

Hi Dale and everyone else here! Just wanted to say that I found your website only a few days ago and what can I say – it’s excellent! I’m browsing round and I’m really impressed with the work you are doing.

Everytime I see something thats really inspiring and makes me smile, I find something else better! First the whole Ecotricity concept, then your magnificent time-lapse videos of the construction of the turbines, then the wind-powered racer, and then the awesome wind-power car!!

Thinking about the racer, does that appear in a Range Rover advert? I’m sure theres something that looks like it?

I may have missed it on previous blog entries, (still reading) but hopefully when the electric car did go into limited production, what kind of figure would you be looking at? Hopefully a lot lower that Tesla?!

I have to say I’m blown away (sorry) by everything your company does. Now it’s the excellent petrol station idea – great! I’ll me a keen reader here from now on!

@Scott – Thanks Scott I really appreciate the feedback. I asked around and apparently there was a land yacht in a recent Range Rover advert, it’s not our craft but something of the same ilk. Maybe one day Range Rovers will be wind powered, might have to lose a few pounds first though….. Cheers.

Scott

June 10, 2008 at 10:29 am

No worries about the feedback, always happy to give credit where credit is due.

Thanks for finding out about the land yacht. It was only a brief clip, but the way the advert was shot and the colours used, it looked very much like your Greenbird.

I’m really inspired about Ecotricity, might have to see if you have any jobs available 😉

ron

August 8, 2008 at 9:10 pm

I think you’re being too critical, and guess what – lots of people like cars and think theyre fun, not just practical drudgeries. Also, you need to look at it like any “new” technology. When it first comes out only rich, first adopters can afford it and put up with the glitches. As time progresses the tech gets cheaper and cheaper and economies of scale kick in until you can buy a DVD player for 30 bucks.

@ Ron – Thanks Ron that’s a great article, and pretty much exactly where we’re coming from. Fun is the key here. To get the majority of people interested in green stuff, green stuff has to be less about a life of denial and more about fun. We’re hoping to show that it is possible to live with zero carbon and still have a hoot – that’s a powerful message. Cheers.

Zero Carbonista

This blog is about answers to the big questions - how will we keep the lights on, what kind of cars will we drive (will we drive?) and how will we feed ourselves - in a post oil world, and a world where we can't afford to keep burning things and throwing things away. Energy, Transport and Food are the three big issues.